In carrying on with our theme, “Finding your Rainbow”, we looked at the colour orange in the classes this week. I am not sure why but orange feels like the colour of bravery to me so we used the affirmation “I am brave” in the classes this week.
We spoke a bit about things in nature that are orange like beautiful sunsets where the whole sky goes a deep orange, orange flowers, some birds, some fish, shells, orange fruits such as apricots, peaches and of course, oranges! I asked the children to whisper the mantra “I am brave” to themselves each time they saw something orange in nature this coming week.
We started off the classes by playing a game with a hula hoop (orange – by chance!). This is a wonderful group exercise for connection and team work. We all stood in a circle holding hands. The hula hoop had to make its way around the circle without anyone letting go of hands. With much laughter and wriggling, in all the classes we managed to get the hula hoop around the circle at least twice.
After a bit of fun and movement, we sat down to speak about what it means to be brave. There were lots of comments indicating that being brave means doing something dangerous. Interesting. I challenged the children’s idea of bravery by reading them the story “Brave Young Knight” by Karen Kingsbury. It is a wonderful story about how integrity, honesty and standing up for what is right wins a young knight the title of being the bravest knight in the land. It is not easy to stand up for what is right and true, and to go against the crowd. That takes a lot of courage. This book depicts this beautifully.
I then passed around the rainbow bag and inside was a card for each child. The cards had slightly different affirmations written on them such as
• You are brave
• You are bold
• You are strong
• You are honest
• You are truthful
Each child got to take a card home and the older children pasted theirs into their journals. We then passed around the ball of coloured wool, making a spiderweb, and each child was told “you are brave” by another child when they received the ball of wool. It was lovely to see the children sharing bravery with each other.
We then did some breath and sound awareness exercises. The breathing technique we learnt this week was Lion’s Breath. A lovely breathing exercise to instil confidence in a child. I suggested that the children might like to practise Lion’s Breath in the bathroom mirror at home to give them confidence before the start of each school day. So, if you see some strange faces being pulled in the bathroom, don’t be alarmed!
In our mindful artwork, we continued to add colour to our mosaic boards – this week adding in the colour orange. Our affirmations bag is nearly full. We now have:
• I am important
• I am safe
• I am true to myself
• I am class
• I am special
• I am brave
I leave you this week with the famous words from Winnie the Pooh:
“You are braver than you believe,
Stronger than you seem,
And smarter than you think.”
~ A. A. Milne
I wish you all well for the week ahead.